We have a chain restaurant that advertises with intimidatingly large flags
I don’t have any flags flying from my house, which makes me an exceptional American. OK, maybe not too exceptional — most houses don’t have flagpoles and aren’t waving their patriotism in everyone’s faces, but having been to Europe and Australia and Asia, I know that in comparison we tend to be a flag-happy nation. But really, the only places, other than official places like the county courthouse and schools, that display a flag also tend to be draped with MAGA nonsense, with pickup trucks covered in ugly political bumper stickers parked in front of them.
That’s fine, I appreciate seeing another visible signifier. But then, I was sent this tweet from Eric Daugherty, a Florida Republican nobody, who has somehow earned the approval of Twitter to send out mass notifications. He is shocked, shocked, shocked that some Americans might see no problem with other country’s flags.
🚨 WTF? A liberal white woman has been spotted handing out several MEXICAN flags outside the ICE facility near Chicago. pic.twitter.com/lr9KL2LBa8
Someone is paying for all of this.
Several of the agitators also had shields and other items CONFISCATED.
Who's buying their…
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 28, 2025
How strange and peculiarly American. Mexico is an ally, and Mexicans are our friends, so she is showing support for an allied nation. We are not enemies, although MAGA seems to think so. It does not diminish us to exhibit solidarity with Mexicans and residents of Mexican descent, especially when an American regime is in power and trying to oppress them.
As for the cost, you can buy a pack of 25 small Mexican flags for less than $20 on Amazon. You don’t need to be George Soros to afford that. Also, people voluntarily attend these kinds of protests without demanding payment — I was at a couple of them earlier this summer. If I ever get out to another protest, maybe I’ll sink some pocket change into getting a few flags-onna-stick to hand out.
If I want to be daring, maybe I should get a bunch of Canadian flags, too.
Anything to counter this weird “patriotic” obsession with the American flag. Did all those years in school pledging allegiance to a stupid flag poison our brains?
I am liberal and occasionally fly an American flag, such as July 4th. We need to reclaim the national symbols.
@tedw
Nah, too late for that. The symbol has been poisoned
The American flag habits are spreading here in Australia among the nationalist crowd
<
blockquote>Did all those years in school pledging allegiance to a stupid flag poison our brains?
<
blockquote>
Yes.
Denmark is the most flag-happy country of western Europe, I think. And has shown a nasty streak of xenophobia recently, although it’s far from unique in Europe in that respect. In the UK, the situation is complicated by the existence, in addition to the Union Flag, of the national flags of England, Scotland and Wales (northern Ireland doesn’t have an official one, for reasons you can probably imagine). There are culture wars for ideological “possession” of specific flags (does either the Union Flag, the St. George Cross flag of England, or both, belong to the far right?), and disputes about what should fly where (outside the Scottish Parliament are the Union Flag, the Scottish Saltire, and the flag of the EU).
Matthew 5, “Make no religious oaths”. A command of Jesus. “37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. “Putting God in the pledge makes it a forbidden religious oath. But who really reads the Bible today?
I’m curious what the excuse for the confiscation was. (I know, I know, contempt of cop/ICE) A shield is kind of the reverse of a weapon, and “other items” isn’t terribly enlightening.
I used to put up my American flag on Memorial Day (May 30th) and take it down on Veterans Day (Nove11th), but when I bought my motion detection video camera/flood light for the front door the flag kept setting it off, so I took it down. Was annoyed at first, kept trying to think of ways around the problem, but had limit places and decided it had to remain down. Kind of glad now, wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a MAGAt.
“A shield is kind of the reverse of a weapon”
Captain America has entered the chat. ;)
In Germany, neo-Nazis fly the Confederate battle flag because the swastika is banned. That tells me all I need to know about that flag.
Decades ago when I was a school. Kid and Lizzie 2 was still alive we used to start the school day with a morning flag raising at which we would recite these words: I honour my God, I serve my Queen and I salute the flag. Back then I was an agnostic Republican so by the time we got to the bit about the flag I would change the words to “I shoot the flag”. Probably a good idea when you see the number of faketriots that wrap themselves in it.
I used to fly RevWar flags: 1st/2nd. Massachusetts, Ethan Allen, Betsy Ross, Cowpens, etc.. Gave it up as the MAGAts usurped their meaning. Now I fly anything but; Eire, Brittany, Vanuatu, Aruba, and the like, instead.
Had a couple walk by admiring My Beloved and Darling Wife’s flowers who mentioned enjoying the flags as well – and googling the images to figure out just which one was up today.
fusilier
James 2:24
I have 2 large Canadian flags I keep in my dresser drawer. I had one of them hanged up on the wall of my apartment house for awhile. Then I took it down. I placed both of them in my dresser drawer in my bedroom where I keep them to this day.
I have a Leeds United 1991-92 Champions pennant hanging on a bedpost.
It’s not just flags of other nations that are despised by the “Real Americans” but also some US state flags, at least in parts of Minnesota anyway:
https://www.startribune.com/not-a-greater-minnesota-flag-detroit-lakes-latest-city-to-refuse-flying-state-flag/601375238
I still have my pirate flag up from last weekend. I think with the situation here in war ravage Portland it just it just may stay up.
For the first time in a long time, I flew the flag on Canada Day (and thereabouts) this year, and I think a fair number of other houses did who normally don’t. Because of you-know-who farting about annexation. Had to look up the protocol for hanging a flag vertically (no flag pole; I used the arbour).
@Rob Grigjanis #13:
I have a Leeds United scarf my mum knitted for me just in time for the 1970 FA Cup final. It still has the sympathetic bruises.
We have a US flag and an Air Force flag. We had the same problem as Stuffin with our motion detector.
We’ve both come to the conclusion that this is a good thing.
My husband, a proud AF veteran, says that he doesn’t feel very proud of our country or the Air Force lately.
The minute a Democratic president is inaugurated,the flags will go back up.
Let’s not forgot our (largely unsingable) national anthem, either. Actually, it’s impossible to forget given the oversaturation. It’s one thing to play a national anthem for a sporting event involving a national team; it’s another entirely for a high-school basketball game with most of the players (and attendees!) anything but descendants of pre-1789 white Northwest European immigrants.
This was always painful for me due to the “unsingable” part, thanks to perfect pitch; Roseanne Barr had nothing on the average drunk rendition in the stands at a high-school football game (with mandatory attendance).
Nothing screams ‘Murica! louder than a federal police officer being beaten with the staff of an American flag while a fascist mob chants “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
And here’s another American sickness:
Multiple people shot at Mormon church in Michigan and North Carolina bar
Mass shootings are getting so common that multiple events must now be corralled into a single article.
Mate, every Monday at assembly we not only had to pledge to honour the the flag, but to serve the Queen.
Which sounds a bit raunchy, but totally wasn’t. X-D
I’m a Brit living in Spain. People often hang flags out along the route of religious pilgrimages: the Spanish national flag, the autonomous region flag, the island’s flag or the municipality’s. It’s also common to decorate balconies with a traditional rug, flower and fruit. This year we hung out a pirate flag, since I’m an amputee. Very few people said anything, but the ones that did enjoyed the joke.
Unfortunately, right wingnuts are currently bedecking lamp posts throughout England with Union flags and St George crosses, as well as painting red crosses on any white surface, notably mini-roundabouts.
They claim to be doing this to protest about the violence to women and girls being wrought by illegal immigrants, but statistically the only way their campaign is protecting women from violence is because the perpetrators are out hanging flags and painting roundabouts.
Last No Kings day, I waved an upside-down flag. Doing so felt very patriotic. That flag is now in my window, still upside-down.
I’ve got the new Minnesota flag. Maybe I ought to put it up outside my house.
The recent Caribbean murder spree has convinced me we should redesign the US flag by replacing the stars with skulls-and-crossbones; surely Venezuelan boaters already see it that way.
These two are frequently seen together in these parts…
Our HOA only allows ‘patriot murikan’ and ‘warfighter’ flags, but, they can’t ban me flying a Hopi tribal flag. The link below shows the original anti-fascist flag we’d like to fly in addition to a Hopi flag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Arrows
PZ, you could fly one of these with your new Minnesota flag. Most of the knuckle-dragging rtwing xtian terrorists would be baffled by it.
There have been two more today.
.3. South Texas, seven were shot – two of whom were killed – in a shooting at a casino
.4. New Orleans, one woman killed and three people were wounded in a shooting on Bourbon Street, early on Sunday.
We’ve had 4 mass shootings on Sunday today and it is only 10:30 AM here on the West coast.
I’ve never had an American flag in my yard, on my car, or my person.
If and when Donald Trump dies, I’ll plant a flagpole in my front yard, so I can fly the American flag at full-mast for a month.
I live in the Netherlands and on a typical day cycling to work I see more Ukrainian and Palestinian flags than Dutch ones. The Dutch flag is only flown during special occasions (liberation day, the King’s birthday, football tournaments…)
I’ve never flown my country’s flag much (the USA in my case), but for the majority of my life I viewed flying flags as a benign, even friendly activity and couldn’t understand why anyone would be bothered by it. Then the MAGA movement came around and started flying and waving the USA flag everywhere as part of their insistence that they, and they alone, were “real Americans”. Now when I see someone flying the US flag at a private residence or on a vehicle, especially if they are flying multiple copies, my first reaction is to assume that they are probably MAGA supporters and therefore not someone I would ever want to bring up politics with. So, thanks to MAGA, the US flag has turned for me from a benign symbol to a potential warning sign.
Speaking of ‘an american sickness’, are there brainworms in all these magat cult members?
https://digbysblog.net/2025/09/28/crazy-time/
Alex Kaplan @AlKapDC
Follow
Trump tonight appears to have pushed the false “medbed” conspiracy theory, which has spread in the far-right internet over the years. https://yahoo.com/news/qanon-conspiracy-involves-magical-bed-084947430.html
8:16 PM · Sep 27, 2025
Trump put up a fake video saying that he was creating a whole new, free medical system featuring these medbeds. Why?
An increasingly popular conspiracy theory falsely centers around the existence of “med beds,” a fabled medical instrument that does everything from reversing aging to regrowing missing limbs. The theory has grown in popularity among followers of far-right movements like QAnon, some of whom claim to be urgently awaiting a med bed to treat severe health conditions.
In a popular QAnon chat group, a woman named Julie was selling hope and a $22,000 cancer treatment. . . For “those interested in medbeds,” she wrote in a 36,000-member QAnon group on the chat platform Telegram, “FYI My husband uses a #medbed generator and 4 tesla biohealers for his stage 3 inoperable and aggressive salivary gland tumor. THIS technology is very supportive!”
“Medbeds?” I bet they saw them in “Elysium.”
You can tell that these medbeds are fake.
The proper term is “autodoc” and in the near future everyone will have one. To extend your lifespan indefinitely, you need to take booster spice, derived from the Tree-of-life of the Paks.
IYKYK.
When was the event? September 16 is Mexican Independence Day and the start of Hispanic Heritage month. Not at all unusual to hand out Mexican flags this month. Seems particularly appropriate to do so at an ICE protest. No Kings Day coming up — what would be an appropriate flag?
You never got your Sorosbux for demonstrating? You just need to register with your local Antifa office.
“Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!”
You think the way the U.S. treats Mexico is the behavior of a friend, much less an ally? With friends like these, who needs enemies?
I think the Progress Pride flag is probably the one that will rile them the most. Or the pink white and blue Trans flag. Personally, I’ve got a tiny little Twink Pride flag somewhere, but no pole to fly it on – which is pretty much a perfect metaphor for my nonexistent love life.
Though I have noticed that UK far right knuckle-draggers have decided to start plastering flags everywhere in a pathetic imitation of US flag culture. Gentlemen (and I use that term quite wrongly): that’s not British patriotism. That’s US patriotism. We have our own tedious and unoriginal ways of expressing that we don’t have any personal achievements to speak of, so we’re going to shove the fact we happened to be born in a certain area of land in everyone’s face. If you want to be British patriots then put up some jolly bunting. Have a cup of tea. Go down the pub. Get tanked up on lager and have a fight outside a chip shop. Genuflect beneath a photograph of an elderly chinless parasite in a gaudy bejeweled hat. Don’t do SOMEONE ELSE’S patriotism, that’s not patriotism at all!
Raven!#29
”murica! We get all our shootin’ done before most other nations have gone to church!
Fly French flags (St. Pierre et Michelon!) and Greenland flags!
I took a bit of a look: https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/1d2qola/most_patriotic_countries_in_an_unpatriotic_world/
—
BTW, in one of my jobs I was the person who raised and lowered the flag at my workplace; there are strict rules that ordinary punters don’t follow. For instance, a daggy flag (they tend to tear up over time, especially in windy conditions) is a big no-no.
(But that is official use, of course)
@36:
I suggest this one:
https://www.crwflags.com/FOTW/images/f/fic-fred.gif
which gives the flag-nuts (the vast majority of whom never served, let alone had to present one to survivors) exactly the respect they deserve.
Gee, I thought they were sarcophagi used by the Gou’ald. Keeps you young, but if you are a human without a symbiote it will eventually drive you mad. Which explains a lot.
[meta]
Jaws, that “flag” image yields no info in itself.
No metadata, only in its nominal identifier, which suggests it’s (a) fictional and (b) the name suggests it refers to ‘Fredonia’ from the 1933 Marx Brothers film Duck Soup. So, a somewhat subtle jibe at Trump, I infer.
Just so you know.
They have identified the Mormon Church shooter.
.1. He is a white 40 year old Marine and Iraqi war veteran.
.2. He had two US flags flying from the bed of the pickup he used to ram the church and set it on fire.
.3. He has a Trump/Vance campaign sign in his yard, visible in Google street view.
.4 Social media posts indicate he is a MAGAt.
So, he is a right wingnut Trump supporter.
It is believed that he is a xian nationalist who targeted the Mormon church because the killer of Charlie Kirk was…a Mormon.
Of course, Trump and the GOP have already explained that the Trump/Vance campaign sign means he is really a Trans, leftist, childless, gay who has a cat. His mother took Tylenol during pregnancy and he was vaccinated with the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine.
I’ve been traveling around New Zealand for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Friendly, sensible people and things just… work. No political, religious or gun-worshipping insanity. Makes me even sadder about the state of my home country.
I does make me wonder, how many other nations require their school children to take loyalty oaths to a “flag”?
Thomas, Australia does not.
(Sorry, no national policy I found quickly, but this one summarises it: https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/flag-flying-and-patriotic-ceremonies/policy )
Thomas @48
In the early 60s in Canada (Alberta) we saluted the flag in the morning but we did not take an oath to it. In the rural one room* school that I went to 1962 – 1964 we saluted a paper Red Ensign pinned to the wall. In the small town school i went to after that, we saluted the fucking Union Jack. By the time the Maple Leaf flag was adopted, I think we stopped doing morning assemblies.
No running water – the outhouses would be tipped over on Halloween.
Something tells me that guy wouldn’t bat an eye if they were Israeli flags.
@ Morales
Not now. But back in the day, absolutely. I could only remember fragments, but the interwebs being what they are it wasn’t hard to to dredge up the exact wording:
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4970898592980964&id=100044341780326
How Orwellian to to make kids pledge what they “love”? And the “cheerfully” is also very Big Brother. We not only had to swear fealty before puberty, but pledge our state of mind as well.
(This was primary school in 1970s Australia, so K-12.)
A good point, but what you’re discussing in English patriotism, or perhaps I should say English British patriotism – because such a large proportion of English people, particularly self-declared patriots, are barely able to distinguish England from Britain from the United Kingdom! (So are almost all Americans, but they do have the excuse of not living in the UK.) Having lived briefly in Wales and for a quarter-century and more in Scotland, even those who support the continuation of the UK will often define themselves as Welsh/Scots first, and in contrast to the English. I would add that the truest expression of English patriotism is perhaps not to make a fuss about it. The underlying attitude of conventional English patriotic superiority (which I’ve come to understand better through living outside England) is that those people who are unfortunate enough not to be English have a lot to bear – so don’t rub it in!
I should add – and I’ve come to recognise this attitude in myself!
@14: From the Star Tribune article re the MN flag:
I notice all the citations are about dead and killed Native Americans, so I have to wonder who “our” is referring to honoring.
.
When I hear about “medbeds” I think of the anime Roujin Z.
.
When I was in high school, our drama club put on a play (I’ve forgotten the name now) set in a classsroom after the communists had conquered the US. It illustrated how propaganda and indoctrination work, with the teacher subtly shaping the kids’ views and encouraging them to rat out their parents in favor of the new regime (much as our current fascists envision education working). At the end, the kids enthusiastically throw the American flag out the window to celebrate their new overlords.
.
Usually our school assemblies began with the pledge to the flag, but being the one in charge of this one, I postponed it for after the play, to maybe get people to think more about the words they were mumbling. There was immediate grumbling when it was skipped over, but even though we still dutifully did it afterward, I literally got death threats for my blasphemy. There were fewer than 400 students in my school, so these were people who knew me, and yet felt no reservations about threatening me over this issue. I couldn’t have asked for a better demonstration of what the play was about, even though it all went over the heads of the indoctrinated.
Turns out the play was “The Children’s Story” based on the short story by James Clavell. You can read it here if you want.
https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/UWEXLakes/Documents/programs/lakeleaders/crew7/greenlake_may_2008/the_childrens_story_becken_presentation.pdf
Ah, the UK. I read this recently: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/sep/28/inside-the-everyday-facebook-networks-where-far-right-ideas-grow
I have no problem with anyone waving a Mexican flag around. It is their right but flying it at an immigration rally? What is the message? It only serves to enrage ICE and their supporters and may well provoke violence but says nothing meaningful. Should it be confiscated? Should the waver be arrested? No of course not. It is their right but it is a stupid unnecessary provocation.
It is so ridiculous I could almost see it as being inspired by right wing nut jobs trying to provoke violence!
lff
@31 / Robert79: Don’t forget the upside-down flags that every Dutch farm was flying a few years ago.
One of my neighbors on my canal in central Amsterdam was flying the Mexican flag last week, I think because it was their independence day. Triggered me to think how nice it would be if we had a day where we all fly the flag of where we’re from (we’ve got on the order of 200 nationalities in our city)…
Next up on Fox & Friends, brought to you by Rupert Murdoch and several corporate advertisers, where could all the money be coming from for that woman to buy a few flags? And in related news, where’s all the money coming from to spread the “trans agenda” you’ve only heard about from us? It’s not clear what the answers are but signs point to billions if not trillions of dollars that have somehow utterly failed to get the message to you or anyone you know. Except of course for our scare tactics about it.
You’re describing a Heckler’s Veto, there, fred. It takes responsibility away from the violent party and puts it on the victim.
@28 So.. The modern version, for the US, would be like… A MAGA hat, with three black arrows running across it? Hmm… lol
Though, at this point creating such a flag would just make you, and anyone flying it, “a terrorist”, according to the administration. But, its something to consider for after the toad croaks and his marching band starts either backpedaling, to try to seem less insane, eating each other, and/or starts fumbling around in confusion, because they now have to think, instead of just covering the ass of their dear leader when ever he says something utterly mad.
Recursive Rabbit, One should accept some responsibility for provoking an attack just for the sake of blaming the violence on someone else with no larger purpose in mind. Waving your hands in someone’s face until they react violently as you had intended is not a blameless act. Provoking the opposition with a message in a demonstration like singing “We Shall Overcome” is more legitimate than waving a Mexican flag at an immigration demonstration because it conveys the message that you are demonstrating for. Again, what is the message here? A national flag is a patriotic symbol not much of a cultural one. This would seem to be celebrating allegiance to the nation that is being left. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to wave the flag of the nation you wish to join! Perhaps the message from the waver is telling the Mexicans to go home!
lff
How exactly is waving a Mexican flag provocative beyond mere the superficial discomforting feelings you, I mean, the violently reacting person, experiences?
Ah, the glories of victim blaming, “Of course you have the right to protest. You just need to do it the right way, according to the people you are protesting. If you do it any other way then they will have an excuse to arrest you. Blah, blah, blah, blah…” Never mind that doing it the “acceptable way” according to people that find no protests of any kind, unless they are the ones doing them, to be acceptable, is pretty much going to get you a) ignored, and b) still called a terrorist, or jobless idiot, or worse, for doing it. Well… F that!
Although there was one funny thing that happened vis-à-vis flags in the front yard (most homes in other countries don’T HAVE FLAGPOLES). One American hung out the flag of the Federation from Star Trek, and his neighbour retaliated by hanging out the flag of the Klingon Empire. Qapla’!
@Fred Yeah, but what was she waving amirite??
In New Zealand you’re more likely to see a rugby teams logo flying on private property than a national flag, and more likely, when you see a national flag, for it to be some other nations. I think someone has the Welsh flag flying between my home and my work. And on occasion the Tino rangatiratanga flag – which you need to know details about New Zealand’s history to understand, and it may fly from official flagpoles with the national flag. Flag flying isn’t really a thing here, just a quirk of few folk.
Returning to the thought. Fred seems like he’s spreading the idea that MAGAts are intrinsically uncivilized and violent, so hurting their pwecious feewings is a big enough danger to warrant overturning any notion of free speech that is “provocative.”
So, basically, he’s instructing us that freedom of expression is an acceptable casualty in the defense against terrorism. Cowardice and contrition is the “winning” strategy for dealing with politically motivated violence at home.